A Study In Psychology
by DREAMIRIS
Summary: Fem!Lock AU. Sherlock Holmes is an underachieving primary school teacher and has her Majors in Child Psychology. She loves children, but when one of her students turns out to be her own kid, what will she do? Parent!John, sort of Parent!Lock, too. ON HOLD FOR NOW BECAUSE THERE'S WAY TOO MANY WIPs.
1. Chapter 1

**Ch 1.**

* * *

Sherlock's eyes snapped open to find her vicious black curls all strewn across her face wildly, as if they had fought the Hundred Years' War on her face while she had been asleep. Sunlight hit her pupils with the force of a supernova explosion. Someone had dared to venture into her bedroom and pulled open the curtains. And then she saw that the right side of the bed had been slept in. And then she remembered that she was only in her underwear.

"Oh, bugger!" She swore under her breath, and looked around for a used condom. There was one. She sighed in relief, and slumped back on the bed. The person was probably in the kitchen, probably making breakfast for her, and thinking of the best way in which he could take advantage of the furniture, and the places in the flat, since he would find that information useful once he moved in.

No, she thought, I need to curb that.

Sighing in exasperation, she pulled on a tank top and tied her hair up in a messy bun, not bothering to put some pants. Just for the precaution, she fished into her cupboard until she found some contraceptive pills. Grabbing a water bottle lying helplessly near her bed, she popped the pill into her mouth and felt loads better. And then, she turned around to face the deadly clock stalwartly announcing its presence.

7:17 A.M.

Oh shit.

She hurried as fast as she could to the bathroom, and without letting Timothy know about it, or letting him hear the soft tread of her dainty feet. She shoved a toothpaste-loaded toothbrush into her mouth, and turned the shower on, simultaneously brushing her teeth furiously. She gasped at the cold water and at the sudden rise of goosebumps on her flesh, and at that exact moment, Timothy decided to trouble her with his annoying voice.

"Hey," said he, in a voice that had sounded very sexy last night. Sherlock managed a grunt at that as she kept brushing her teeth as fast as she could.

"You're up."

Sherlock did not take a moment to inspect her appalled face in the mirror owing to Tim's stupidity, or the love bite he had made on her neck. She's have to wear a scarf of some sort; she couldn't let the children see her like that, and have them ask her if she had been bitten by a big ugly wasp. If there was one thing she knew about children, it was that they liked knowing just the things she did not want them to.

"Clever of you to notice that," she managed back a volley for an answer, hoping to God that he would not bring up last night.

"Listen... last night..." he began tentatively, and Sherlock groaned to herself, "I was wondering if - "

She spit into the washbasin, and opened the door at once, making the coffee mug fall from Tim's fingers and crash at his feet. Tim almost did not feel the searing hotness of the coffee as it spilt on his toes because the room had become hotter than that as Sherlock extended her arm, and pulled him right in, "I've got fifteen minutes," she growled, taking his large hands and covering her crotch with his palms, her voice husky upon seeing the immediate reaction between Tim's legs, "Make best use of them, and don't you _dare_ bite me this time!"

"Sure, m'lady," he breathed out shakily, feeling almost intimidated at her arousing directness as he leaned in to close all distance between them.

* * *

As soon as fifteen minutes were over on the alarm clock, Sherlock pushed Tim away while he was in the middle of a blindingly intense orgasm.

"Get out!" She growled, pushing him out, "I need to take a proper shower."

And before he could react, he was out of the bathroom with a very inappropriate erection and with a skull staring down at it eerily. He always wondered how Sherlock had the ability to make his knees buckle like that, and make the most obscene of noises and then make him leave just as if she had been performing a formality before. After five minutes, Sherlock stormed out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body.

"Listen," Tim started hopefully, "About last night - "

"Last night was a one-night thing," Sherlock snapped, chewing on her toast that Tim had made her very lovingly for the morning, "So I expect to never even see your face again, is that clear?"

Tim cringed, "Sherlock..." he croaked.

"Get out!"

Tim's face fell, but then he regained it almost immediately, "You know what? Whatever. Your loss."

And with that, he stormed out, clearly hurt by the rejection. Sherlock simply tossed her head back, getting into her clothes for the day as she sneered to herself, "Yeah right."

It took her blazingly fast five minutes to get ready, pick out the files needed for the day and fish around for the keys for her scooter. It was late, she was late, so goddamned late, and all the kids were probably playing hell on the classroom benches right then, screaming on top of their voices like they always did.

Sherlock never loved kids when she was a kid herself. Kids were horrible to her, telling her that she was not like "other girls", that she was creepy and that she observed things that she ought not to. Sherlock always went back to her mummy, asking what an "other girl" was like, and her mum would tell her that other girls were stupid and boring. That's where Sherlock had picked up the word that she would later have an eternal love-affair with: boring. It had only been when she was fifteen that she had become pregnant that she discovered that she could love children. At that time, she despised herself for not using protection, her brother Mycroft and her parents insisted on an abortion that no one would come to know about. But he had come to know, John, the boy who had slept with her. He begged her to keep the child, and when she discovered the feeling of life inside her for the first time, or when John sneaked her out of the house to get an ultrasound, and when she had heard the first heartbeats of her baby boy, she had fallen completely in love with it.

She shook those thoughts away, feeling treacherous tears coming up in the corner of her eyes, and blurring her vision when she was supposed to drive carefully through the hell-bound traffic. Mind was a most amazing creation, a perfection with a devil lurking inside, ready to corrupt it, and more so in a child. It had been her love and her interest in the absurd and complex mind of the child which led her to take up child psychology. It was a beautiful subject, ever changing, ever colourful like a kaleidoscope, wherein if you would look into it, you would see a different pattern every time. Every child was different, every child was unique and frankly special, because a kid, as she remarked often, was not conditioned by the society to be an idiot at the tender ages between four and eleven. And then, adolescence would come in out of nowhere, and all hell would break loose on the child's wonderful uniqueness.

Although her line was interesting, it gave you money only when you went for counselling. And Sherlock hated the idea of counselling with the parents present in the same room. Not that the child would feel very comfortable sitting in a room with a woman in high clicking heels, and in a glossy blouse and a pencil skirt, with her legs crossed like that of a dominatrix, but Sherlock could reach out to them, in a way no one could. But the parents... they just didn't help. They spoke on and on for their kids as if they were the ones who had come in for counselling, not the kid. Because, apparently, they did not feel comfortable leaving their child alone with an intimidating, haughty woman who did nothing to ease their ridiculous doubts.

Therefore, Sherlock settled for teaching, which was not a boring task at all, even if it didn't guarantee her financial security, she loved children because they were amazing and they were the most intelligent of beings. She found it amusing how a five-year old child could manipulate her parents into giving her the best of presents, or how she recognised the pressure points and weaknesses of her parents, and tried to exploit them very successfully. She loved seeing the power dynamics between the seven-year olds, and how a child viewed the world in only the sharpest shades of black and white. She loved it when she saw how a child was always unwilling to negotiate, and whenever a kid did so, it would always keep its gains and objectives clear in its mind. It was almost like a mini-senate in her classroom.

Moreover, she loved the creative writing classes, and going through the vivid imaginations of each of her students poured into paper. If given the chance, every kid could be absolutely amazing, and strong enough to go through their adolescence without much changes to their integral personalities.

One of those kids was William. Will was a kind child, sweet by disposition, and had very strong moral principles even as he was only five-and-a-half. He usually defended his friends with the usual bullies in the classroom, and was always very quick to start a fight. He always came up to her with the usual squeak, "Ms. Holmes! Ms. Holmes," followed by the usual requests or pleas for help. One day, Sherlock saw him fighting with another kid, and she had to separate them and take them to the Head Teacher, whereupon she discovered that they had been fighting over whose family was better.

Will did not have a mother, as he disclosed to her after the fight. Sherlock explained to him, with a slight guilty feeling in her heart, that some families did not have mothers. She had to make up a version of her own family, where the problem was almost the same. Will had gotten enthusiastic, and had started to ask her more and more, but she had simply asked him to return to his work lest she postpone all his class work as burdensome homework. A child never liked negotiating, and hence Will had sped off without another word.

But today was just another version of hell.

"Bobby, that's you in detention for the week," Sherlock's voice boomed out of nowhere as she stormed into the classroom, "Will, that's you in detention for the week, also for you Seb, and also, that's your parents coming to school tomorrow!"

After the class settled down, to Sherlock's utter relief, she started with a viva on pronouns. She loved seeing those children try and think that they could deceive her by cheating from their neighbours notebooks, and she loved making them think so, just so she could pounce upon them at the opportune moment. Although, most children knew that Ms. Holmes always seemed to know, and it was only the rogue ones which attempted any such stunts, and that too for the entertainment of the classroom.

And that was precisely why Sherlock loved kids. They were never boring. They were all little bags of stardust and surprises. And Sherlock simply loved being surprised.

* * *

It was a free period when Will came up to her again. Sherlock had been making two children spot the differences between two images when the little boy came up to him and declared that his left eye was hurting.

Sherlock took him to one side, "Did you rub it too much?

"Only afta it started paining," He admitted, and Sherlock corrected him, "not 'paining', it's hurting. It's the more proper word."

"Hur'ing," he corrected himself weakly, pouting slightly, and looking sadly at his laces. They were always done properly. In fact, Will was the only child who could tie his own laces.

"How's your eyesight? Can you read this?" she scribbled the letter 'g' on the notebook, and showed it up to him.

"Yup," said he in a small weak voice, but not failing to pop the 'p' like always. Sherlock smiled at how he reminded her of herself, "It's 'g'."

"Have you gone to a doctor?" she asked, blowing warm breath into her handkerchief, and dabbing at his left eye tenderly.

"Yes, she gave ma eye medicine an' candy," he spoke seriously, "And then, whe' I woke up this mo'nin', its was hur'ing."

"It was hurting," Sherlock corrected him again, and he swallowed thickly, "Ms. Holmes, Ms. Holmes, can you treat me?"

Sherlock realised after some time that the ache was purely psychological, "What do I say that you are, Will?"

"A very good boy," he chanted solemnly, and Sherlock smiled, "Yes. What do good boys do?"

"They work hard."

"So I think you should work hard on your class work, because if you do that, after sometime you'll forget all about it."

"I will?" he asked, his wide blue eyes curious and hopeful. Sherlock nodded, "Yes you will. Do I ever lie to you?"

"No," said he at once, not believing that Ms. Holmes could lie, "but it's free period, Ms. Holmes. I don't have class work now and now it's goin' ter hurt me."

There it is, Sherlock thought, proof that his pain was psychological, because he had come up to her during the free period, "You can delete it from your mind, you know?"

"Was delete?" he asked her with his wide inquisitive eyes.

"Deleting is something you do when... when you don't want it to affect you," said she, her mind instantly travelling to her long-dead child, and her long lost boyfriend, John. She often wondered what happened to him. He was probably married now, happy with a dozen of kids. Well that was okay anyway. He was never her real boyfriend, they had just been dating for seven months, and they had only one night together. And after that, it had all come crumbling down, just because Sherlock had been too impatient to use a condom, in spite of what John had insisted on.

"Can I do tha'?" he asked her, "Dele' it?!"

Sherlock sighed to herself, "Tell you what Will, I'll pair you up with Cassie, and you can find differences between two pictures, okay?"

At once, Will stood up, the pain in his eye forgotten, "Yes ma'am."

* * *

Sherlock had been going through the creative writing module, and she put Will's paper face down on the desk. The kid had personal problems, and she admired the boy for being so brave about it. This was another characteristic of kids that Sherlock loved. They could stand and bear almost anything, they were braver than the bravest of adults, never even thought about ending their lives like cowards tried to. The assignment explained why Will was so good at starting fights. Will wrote about how his father had nightmares, about how he cried in his sleep, and Will pretended that he was fast asleep, but Sherlock had seen the evidence right under his eyes every day. She decided to have a talk with this Mr. Watson, and alert him on how his mental health was affecting his child.

She picked up the phone, and her call was answered by an old woman. That might be a nanny or something, because Will's dad was a single parent, "Hello, Watson's residence."

"Hello," Sherlock began, "may I speak to Mr. Watson? I'm William's teacher from St. Pauls'."

"I'm sorry," the old woman's voice became more tremulous, "He's not here at the moment. What happened? Is William in trouble - ?"

"Oh, no, no, no, no," Sherlock shook her head. Why did parents always assume that kids were the guilty parties, "Nothing of that sort. I'd just like to meet him and talk about Will, don't scold him, it's not his fault. Just ask him to give me a call on this number, and I'll get back to him, alright?"

The old lady barely managed a sob before Sherlock decided to cut the phone. She sighed, plopping her forehead between her fingers, and set down to read more of the interesting modules that the children had written up.

* * *

That night, Sherlock got herself a new man to sleep with. She was fiercely proud of herself for using protection every time since that one disastrous event when she had conceived John's baby, and her sexual encounters were extremely brazen since a recent few weeks. Suddenly, she freed her hand and herself from the man's grip, slapping away the palm which cupped her breast to reach out for her mobile phone.

"You have one new message," her phone replied. It must have rung back when this new person had been fucking her all over and over again. He stirred beside her, but otherwise he still remained asleep.

"Erm, hello, Will's teacher," came a mellow tenor as Sherlock played her voicemail, "I'm sorry if Will's done anything. I know he fights a lot, but anyway I should meet you, if you think that's erm... if it's that serious. So... erm," Sherlock thought he heard another foreign breath behind Mr. Watson, "Tell me when it's good."

"If you'd like to play it - "

Sherlock shut her phone with a click. They definitely needed to talk about Will. She glanced up at the time. It was almost two in the morning. Nevertheless, she typed a message back to Mr. Watson, asking if Friday, 5 o'clock was appropriate for him. She thought that she should do it, lest she forgot it during her morning rush and kicking this new person out of her flat too. Mrs. Hudson was getting annoyed with so many different men coming to sleep over at Sherlock's, but she stayed quiet, owing to her masterful, nonchalant coolness.

She sighed and curled into his warm body. At any rate, Will's dad wasn't going to reply now. She tried not to think about the young dear child who lay in his bed, frightened and confused.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ch 2.**

* * *

Sherlock eyes snapped open again to her buzzing phone. Somehow, the guy next to her always managed to cup one of her breasts everytime even in his sleep. Sherlock had half-a-mind to tell him that it wasn't arousing in the slightest. A text back, from Mr. Watson, she checked.

**_Friday, 5:30 pm. Will's school._**

Sherlock couldn't help but smirk at his reply. Well, if Mr. Watson wasn't the one to mince words. She had never received a more precise reply from anyone else. She imagined that Mr. Watson must be a busy man, and her smile faded at once. She knew exactly how those high-profile parents were like, who did not pay a single ounce of attention to their kids. But Will seemed nothing like that. He was surprisingly well-behaved and Sherlock could see that although his clothes were machine-washed and ironed by a housekeeper, the folds and creases of his shirt and his kerchief and scarf had a distinct military neatness to them, suggesting that either the housekeeper had been in military, which was highly improbable, given the way her voice had quavered when Sherlock had informed her that she was Will's teacher speaking.

Therefore, it was his father doing it, and if Mr. Watson went far enough to fold his son's clothes himself, it was evident that he loved Will very much. Meaning that Will's father had spent some time in the military. And given the way his voice had been uncharacteristically nervous over the voicemail (at least uncharacteristic for an ex-soldier, she assumed), his pressure point was his son. Therefore, maybe, Will's mother was dead, maybe long before he had become intelligent enough to recognise his mum and dad visually, because Sherlock had never heard him talk about his mum.

Which reminded her that she also had to call up at Robbie's house.

It was just possible that Will's father did not realise the damage he was doing to his son, or maybe he did, but he couldn't help it. Nightmares? Many soldiers were diagnosed with PTSD after they had come back from active duty and after they were forced to relive some of the worst experiences in their lives in their sleep.

Nonetheless, Sherlock decided that she did not have much data and that she really shouldn't draw her conclusions before she met the man for herself. But for now...

"Hey," she smiled flirtatiously at the man lying next to her. This one had a nice face and the one that her mother referred to as 'bedroom eyes'. She slipped out of her underwear and gently slipped back into bed with him, forcing him awake. She tried to remember his name. Shane... something?

"Hey!" he smirked back, the sort of smug smile that she only could kiss away in order to wipe it from his face.

"Ready for a morning shag?" She asked, placing his hand on her breasts, taking a finger and circling her interested nipple with it, and watching the tell-tale mound between his legs grow. She wondered how her libido had begun to soar high up in the air in the first place. Sex was the best distraction she had... but from what, she had no idea. She had always heard of drugs and crack and coke, but nothing, she believed, nothing was as intensely and blindingly and invigoratingly pleasurable as sex.

And when it came to intercourse, nothing could match the first time she had had with John. Because with John, she had felt a sense of intimacy, of belonging like she had never felt with anyone else. Of course, she never would. For her, the only relationship she liked having was the unselfish ones with her children in the classroom, much happier and much simpler as 'yes' or 'no'. She needed sex, so she had it.

"Oh, God yes," Shane leaned forward, and forced her brutally forward by the base of her neck to mash their lips together.

* * *

Sherlock had been grading the creative writing assignments when Cassie came up to her. Will and Robbie were sitting two benches away, doing drawings of their favorite sport.

"Ms. Ho'mes! Ms. Ho'mes!" Cassie squeaked, and Sherlock shifted the papers away from her desk as her student sat down on a chair in front of her. Even as a five year old, Sherlock couldn't help but notice how she sat like a perfectly grown-up lady, her legs together, her socks up to the same level, and her skirt without any unruly creases, "Yes, Cassie?"

She looked down shyly at her lap, and hesitantly met Sherlock's eyes. Instantly, Sherlock realised that she had done something wrong. Realising that Will and Robbie would be listening to whatever she Cassie was going to say, she asked her to move over so that she could have more privacy, and put just an arm on her shoulder. If there was anything Sherlock had learnt about kids, it was that except for the really clever and narcissistic ones, they hated being treated as kids. She waited patiently for Cassie to take her time.

"Ms. Ho'mes, promise me you won' tell Seb anythin'," she squeaked in her ear, and Sherlock nodded in understanding, "Unless I don't have any reason to." Sherlock never lied to children, and she tried to maintain that, to be as precise and as frank with them as possible. Because, unlike what other adults believed, kids usually did not tend to forget if they were being lied to. She learnt that from her own experience. She did not dare to think that as a child, she had been smarter than others. Her upbringing was just different, and her curiosity had never been suppressed in the name of 'when you'll grow up, you'll understand'. Her mother took care of that, and her father, who was always frank with everyone, talked freely with her during those long evening walks. Her childhood was somewhat unusual, but it was as good as it could be.

At this, Cassie twiddled her thumbs nervously, "You migh' tell 'im..."

"Is it that bad?" Sherlock asked.

"No..." her voice was now uncertain, and any stiffness in her posture was now relaxing, "But I need to tell anyone."

"Someone," she corrected her, and Cassie looked into Sherlock's grey eyes, trusting and then slowly looked down, "I... I tol' a lie."

Sherlock nodded, her expression impassive and non-judgemental, "Go on. If you don't want to, you don't have to tell me what you said to Seb. You could just ask me what you need."

"No... but... but," she started defending herself, "It wasn'... it wasn' a - a real lie..."

Sherlock frowned in confusion. She had never come across 'real lies' and 'unreal lies' and this was now unfamiliar land, "What do you mean?"

"We - we... know," Cassie started, sounding very confused herself, as if thinking through whether he remembered it right or not, "we know that there is a white lie, and then there's a s - sort of black Protestant lie, which is more serious... I think - "

Sherlock tried to not let her confusion be evident on her face. Cassie was the cleverest kid in the class, and that's why she always came to her for advice, unlike the others who thought that they were "grown-up" enough to handle it on their own. But now, listening to her talking about 'black' and 'white' lies were certainly disconcerting, "I - I don't think so, Cassie. Who told you that?"

"My - my paren's?"

Sherlock tried not to shake her head in dismay. For such a gifted child, her parents were absolute... Sherlock wasn't really sure what she should call them. Racist? Orthodox? Too Christian? Too Roman Catholic? Too Anti-Protestant? Stupid was a better choice for teaching their kids such absurd things. If her baby were alive, she would've made sure that he learnt the most precise of things, and none of such orthodox bullshit.

"No, Cassie," she shook her head in refusal, "There's no such thing as a white lie or a black lie. A lie is a lie."

Cassie scratched her head, thinking it through. Seeing that Will and Robbie were trying their best to listen, Sherlock turned to them, "Will, Robbie, how much have you completed?"

They showed her their complete drawings, a litany of colours and imagination on their paper. She smiled appreciatively and give them thumbs-up. Knowing Will's helpful nature, she asked them to submit their drawings and to help Phil in the back benches, who looked like he needed help. Will shot away at once, and Robbie followed his best friend without a word.

"You know, Ms. Ho'mes... sometime my sister does cooking, an' although she cooks very bad, my mum and da tell her its very good, so that they don' hurt her feelings... that sor' of lie..."

Sherlock thought it through. She remembered how sometimes her classmates did that sort of thing when she was a kid, and then when Sherlock would tell the truth, they would all get upset, and the person would shout at her even if she told the truth. Whenever she went home and asked her mum what she should've done, her mum always said that she did the right thing because after all, the other person would see through their faults and do better the next time. She decided to answer similarly.

"You know Cassie, when I was in school," Cassie's green eyes went wide at the thought that the tall and intelligent and so-grown up Ms. Holmes could've attended school once upon a time, "One of my classmates made a drawing, and it was very bad."

"So..." Cassie looked at her expectantly, and Sherlock realised that her situation with Seb must be something similar, "What did you do?"

"I told her that it wasn't very good, and that everybody would make fun of her," Sherlock spoke, and Cassie seemed completely engrossed in her story, "And then, at first she did scream at me, and told me that I was a mean girl, but then..."

Sherlock wondered if she should tell her the real story, of how that girl's parents had called up at her house and her mother had shouted her head off at Sherlock's mother until they had to have it settled in the school, where even Sherlock's mother had declared her drawing a monstrosity. The experience wasn't good.

"Well... a lot of drama happened which I slept through," and Cassie giggled conspiratorily at that, "But after that... when the time for grades came, she submitted her drawing and got a 'D'. You see, a 'D'."

Cassie's mouth became an 'O' at that. Being the cleverest student, it was unimaginable for her to get a 'D'. But she still looked a little skeptical, "Um... but it's the sor' of lie that won't hurt Seb... you know... it does not hurt my sister... and she will learn cooking even... even..."

"Eventually," Sherlock completed the large word for her, "Been reading the dictionary again, are you?"

"Susie and Will gave me one for my birthday," she squeaked excitedly, her previous reserve forgotten, "I learn five words every day!"

"Hmm... but if you point out your sister on her cooking, you might get a decent meal next time," Sherlock offered.

Cassie looked confused for a while, "So... I should tell Seb? I told him that Santa was real, but... I know he ain't."

"Isn't."

"Isn't..."

Sherlock was impressed. Cassie was the only person who told her that she did not believe in Santa, and that too at the age of five. That was pretty... fast. And weird... considering that her parents were too Roman Catholic to make out a black "Protestant" lie.

"I think it shouldn't matter to him in a year or two," Sherlock told her, thinking of Seb, who always insisted on bringing his Playstation. He seemed like the boy who would laugh at the idea of Santa's existence in a year, "Anyway... if you're feeling guilty, you could tell Seb that you were wrong."

"But I wasn't wrong. I lied."

"Can you tell him that?" Now Sherlock was beginning to get tired because she had thought that this was a major problem, but still, it was a kid, and she would have listened to her baby just like that.

No, she thought again, she would've dumped him on her partner, if it were John.

To her relief, Cassie nodded, and with a thank you, she sped off.

* * *

Sherlock intended to finish her work before she met Mr. Watson in the staff room, although because this was specifically about him, and the effect his sleeplessness was having on Will and his development, she preferred to have the talk in her classroom, so that the other snoopy, gossip-loving teacher did not have to hear it. So, when the peon arrived and told her that Mr. Watson was waiting in the hallway, she simply asked him to send them in. The peon looked at her weirdly, and she honestly wondered why they had not gotten bored of their ability to look weirdly at her. Even she had got bored of it. Everyone in the school knew that Ms. Holmes was an oddity.

"Yeah, send them in! What are you, deaf?!" she snapped, putting her papers away, and smoothing her skirt down. As she set to cleaning her desk, which always looked like elephants had tap-danced on it, she heard the unmistakeably same mellow voice that he had heard on the voicemail, "Ms. Holmes?"

"Yes," she turned and brushed a stray lock out of her eyes. Will beside his father looked almost like he was presenting the two of them to each other proudly, "Mr. Watson, I presume?"

Of course, this was Mr. Watson. Will was his carbon copy, except for the nose and the chin, which were mostly mother's, she imagined. Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed him. War wound, psychosomatic leg, broken and scarred, weather beaten, unemployed, and as correctly she had deduced earlier, an ex-soldier. The most remarkable fact was that he looked vaguely familiar... although Sherlock couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was someone from the university... probably. He was too weather beaten to come into recognition.

"Yes," he croaked. She turned away before she could see Mr. Watson's jaw drop in astonishment.


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't know the primary school system in UK, so please give me the benefit of doubt. I'd actually be grateful if you told me where I went wrong in the school system.**

**Also, this is not a promise that a 4th chapter is coming up soon. I have so many WIPs now and I want to complete them before I give this more serious attention.**

* * *

"Yes," Sherlock waved him into one of the chairs, but then she noticed that they were too small for him. Will looked a little embarrassed when he saw his father settling down into a chair meant for kids.

"Daddy!" He whispered in an undertone, as if his father was embarrassing him, "You're si'ing inside our chairs!"

Mr. Watson gave Will a weak smile. Will gave an equally enthusiastic one in return, happy to show his father to his teacher before any of his friends could.

"It's 'in', not inside, William," Sherlock corrected automatically upon hearing that and turned to the peon, who still hadn't lost that bewildered expression from his face. With her eyes, she motioned to him to bring a bigger chair for him and cleared his throat, "Just a moment, Mr. Watson . . . erm, William? This might be the first and the last time I'll be giving you a chance to play outside even if you're supposed to be in here. Do you want to pass that up?"

Will looked a little intimidated by the onslaught of words from Ms. Holmes' mouth, and then miraculously, he understood, and with glee written plainly on his face, he shot out of there like a bird who has just learnt to fly. Sherlock watched after him for sometime in astonishment. She clearly hadn't expected him to _understand _her and run away. She had at least expected him to stutter and then go away while trying to understand what she had said.

But then, Will sometimes displayed instances of frighteningly sharp intellect even in past. If it wasn't for his lack of sincerity, he would certainly have outshone Cassie academically.

Sherlock settled down in front of Mr. Watson. He looked like someone Sherlock couldn't put her finger upon. He might have been someone from uni and she would've recognised him, if only his face hadn't been so lined with age and worry and sleepless nights. His face was still recovering from tan and sunburns. He couldn't have been very old, given that Will was so young and didn't have any siblings.

"Well, um. . ." she realised that the man was staring at her. Literally, as in the old-fashioned staring with wide eyes and mouth slightly hung open, "make yourself comfortable," she nodded briskly to the chair and opened a file where she had kept Will's assignments away separate from the rest of the class' for the parent-teacher meeting. The _official_ meeting was two weeks later, but the thought that Will might have to spend his nights without proper sleep for another two weeks made her call Mr. Watson as soon as possible.

Mr. Watson snapped out of his trance and sheepishly took the chair that the peon provided him wordlessly. Sherlock glared the lazy, gossiping, dawdling employee away.

"Yes, of course," he said, a little flustered. Sherlock shot him a sharp look. He definitely was someone she must've known (and deleted) in university. Maybe he just hadn't expected Sherlock to be the teacher of his son. Sherlock amused herself by thinking that she could take out some overdue uni revenge on Will, if any.

"So, you wanted to," Watson nodded to Will's assignments, "talk about William. Ms. Holmes, I understand that he is a little—well, not really _little_—hot-headed, he fights a lot, but I've tried to discipline him—"

Sherlock wasn't convinced.

The man may have the air of a military man of high ranking, but going by Will's volatile nature, there must be something of that sort about his character too, or maybe that was the mother. Being a military man, he must be able to discipline a young boy, but something said that Will was too rebellious to follow the commands of his battle-weakened father.

But there was a certain weakening to his character. When Mr. Watson had walked in, he had been confident and precise in his movements. Now he looked quite fragile. All of it pointed towards guilt. Guilt of not being able to take care of his child the way a normal parent would.

"What's your name?" Sherlock blurted out. Watson rang a bell in her mind, something that she had buried deep inside her with the layers she had erected around herself since the time she had found herself betrayed by the one boy she had put all her trust into. She had tried to delete him, but had succeeded only partially.

That boy—curiously—also had the name Watson

Mr. Watson looked directly at her. The change in his expression could be discernible to even a cow. Those wrinkles seemed to be absorbed back into his skin. He straightened his back up, and the corner of his mouth curled. He blinked, and then in a very steady voice, he said, "John Watson."

Sherlock froze.

Im-fucking-possible.

"John Watson?" she echoed, too stunned to be able to maintain her professional mask.

But there was no mistaking those inquisitive blue eyes, the ones that Will had inherited, the way he gave Will a lopsided but weak smile, the laugh that Will had inherited from his father.

It was The John Watson. The man she had come to hate in her sophomore year in school.

"Funny old world," John smiled humourlessly as Sherlock watched his face carefully, "I thought you remembered me. So you're a teacher now?"

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock demanded quietly, angrily. She imagined that John was making fun of her profession.

"_I'm _William's parent," he said, and Sherlock could detect a sneer to his tone and an extremely possessive edge coming to it. "The _only_ parent. I have a responsibility to him. I was trying my best to go on but you had to. . ." he trailed off.

"Well, congratulations. I'm William's teacher, as you very unhelpfully pointed out," she said, gritting her teeth and keeping her face beautifully aloof. Inwardly, she chided herself for her extremely unprofessional behaviour just because of her ex-boyfriend, "so let's get this over with."

Sherlock couldn't verbalise how angry she felt, seeing John again. John had betrayed her, John had made her keep the baby instead of taking the pill and then he had run away for good just after she had delivered, run away when he had got an offer letter from King's and had realised that he wouldn't be able to pay his rent for the halls and bring up a baby with a girl he had been going out with for six months. Those promises, hollow promises John made while smuggling her out of her house to look at cribs and baby. . . paraphernalia and telling them what an odd and ridiculous family they'd be—

Sherlock swallowed those bitter thoughts in. John didn't know the hell she had gone through. To have your baby die and your boyfriend leave in a single day and people and your classmates assuming right till your senior year that you're an irresponsible slut just because you were going to be a teenage mother. To have your mummy and daddy and Mycroft, _bloody Mycroft_, traumatise you, force you into abortion every single day till two months before the delivery—

Sherlock fisted her hand into the hem of her skirt under the desk. John kept looking at her as if he had done nothing. How dare he even have the audacity to look Sherlock in the eye?

"True," John bit back, while he looked incredulous at Sherlock declaring that she was Will's teacher, "let's get this over with."

"Good," Sherlock said as calmly as possible. She couldn't let this affect herself. She couldn't let this affect herself, she chanted over and over again.

"I've not called you here because William fights a lot. While sometimes he does end up in front of the Head Teacher, I can tell you that," she avoided John's eye for something she couldn't really comprehend, "William fights only when he is provoked, so that's not really an issue."

She could sense John raising his eyebrows at 'not an issue'. She could almost hear John's old voice saying that she was being tactless. Odd. She hadn't had a single moment of imaginary John speaking to her all these years, and then the man himself appears and suddenly she was remembering the way John used to laugh at her lack of tact.

"Children fight all the time, Mr. Watson. Boys kick each other, girls tug at ponytails. Surely, you'd also lose your well-cultivated sense of adulthood and discretion if someone provoked you in the wrong ways. That's a perfectly natural tendency. The reason I called you is," she drew out Will's creative writing assignments and handed them to him, "this."

All bitterness drained out of John's face when he recognised Will's penmanship, "That's. . . William's."

"Otherwise I wouldn't be giving them to you," Sherlock said, "Usually we grade them and hand it over to the parents during the official parent-teacher meetings—at least that's what I do; I have no idea what other teachers do—so that the children don't misplace the papers or lie about losing them or something, children are excuse factories who are good at looking innocent."

John kept nodding, trying to hide a smirk. His nod was a bit too artificial to be true, and it was driving Sherlock on edge.

"Go on," Sherlock leaned against the back of her chair, "give it a read."

Sherlock watched John's face. Now that she took a full second look at him, he looked almost the same to her. Those blue eyes, but only creased with worry, reminded her of the senior-year John, when Sherlock had only been a freshman with an impossible crush on the cute senior—

She stopped before she could go on any further. She was supposed to glean information about Will from his father's expression.

John proved an interesting man. She recalled that he had six A levels-the school had been very proud of him-went to King's, became a doctor, and now Sherlock could clearly see that had just returned from the army—Afghanistan or Iraq. Unusual choice of vocation. She pondered just how much Will must have drawn his nature from that of his father. Mother. . . well, she was still unknown. Sherlock itched to know about which wretch John had married—who he had deemed better than Sherlock to raise his kid with.

Sherlock glanced across at him, and she could see John's face muddied up with a lot of emotions—guilt, horror, shock, pity, self-reproach.

"Done?" Sherlock asked, breaking the quietude before John became suicidal. But instead he looked embarrassed.

"Ms. Holmes, I—" John looked at a loss of words. For a man who was quite sure and occasionally cocky of what he was going to say, he looked so uncertain, but then his tone became flat, extremely so, "I really hope you'd hand it over to me today. This," he pointed at the accused paper, "this is family problems he's written about."

"And he's intelligent and observant enough to describe them so precisely. Such a home environment as yours is hardly healthy for the mental development of such an impressionable child. He spends sleepless nights. I don't say anything when I catch him napping in the free periods. He's energetic and he's bound to be tired easily."

John looked livid when she confronted him like that. That was odd too. The John she knew didn't object to reason and logic, however cold and cruel it was. He swallowed his anger quickly, "Home environment?"

"PTSD, aunt's alcohol problems, aunts shouting and hitting," she pointed out in Will's assignment, and then pulled out another assignment. "This is Robbie's assignment. He's William's best friend. Give it a read."

When John was finished, he was overwhelmed by the difference between them. Sherlock didn't know whether to be smug about it or not.

"William is a unique boy. I've seldom seen someone as helpful and caring as him. Yes, he and Robbie are mischief makers, but we can pardon that. But this," she pointed at Will's assignment, "this might, it can make a permanent impression on him—"

At that very moment, a sharp cry broke out from the playground—unmistakeably Will's. It took both of them only a second to rush to their feet and hurry towards the playground—which was adjacent to Sherlock's classroom.

Upon spotting Will trying to get up, John broke into a raw-throated cry, "Will!" and rushed towards the six-and-a-half year old boy. Sherlock, for her part, tagged behind John, who was a surprisingly fast runner.

Upon coming close, John swallowed upon seeing the large amount of blood flowing freely from Will's right knee, where the skin had broken and a sharp end of metal had probably sunk into. Will, for his part, tried to stifle his cries and stay brave in front of them, especially his father, but the pain and the sight of his own blood was probably too much for him to handle. As for John, he became completely immobilised for a moment. Bloody army doctor, sewing up lacerations on the battlefield and helpless in front of his bleeding—literally—kid, Sherlock thought.

"We'll need to get him into the MI Room," she said, as John broke out of his reverie. Taking out his handkerchief, he pressed it on the wound and tried to block the flow of blood, while whispering soothing words to Will like, "it's okay, love! You're a brave boy, aren't you? You're my little soldier. Boys don't cry, right?" Will clenched his bony little fists as his father pressed harder onto the wound.

"Need to get him a tetanus shot," Sherlock said, her heart beating frantically and her senses kicking at the boy's pain. Something instinctive told her to snatch the boy from John and hold him to her chest, but she didn't. John wouldn't appreciate that. No parent would appreciate that. She glanced around to see a couple of teachers coming out to see what the noise was all about. John picked Will up bridal style as Sherlock pointed to the jagged metal edge from one of the swings the workers had replaced.

Will's lips trembled, and he looked from Sherlock to John, his face heartbreakingly painful as John carried the boy inside with difficulty.

"Ms. Holmes, could you—?" he motioned to his blood-soaked handkerchief. Seeing as it wouldn't serve much purpose, she drew out her own and tied it around Will's knee as the boy tried to inch away from her forceful hand, but Sherlock held on to his leg stubbornly and tied it firmly around his knee.

"See," she pointed to his knee hopefully, "much better."

Will actually took some time to peep at his wound, and hugged his father tighter.

"Just a couple of more steps, love," John kept whispering, his voice heaving with the strain of rushing with a tall-for-his-age boy in his arms. Sherlock rushed forwards first, and called the nurse out of her slumber. She kicked into life as soon as she spotted the child being heaved inside. With curt instructions, she motioned John to put Will on the bed while she undid the knot of handkerchief. This time, Will gave out a cry of pain that he had tried to contain within himself. A fat tear made its way out of his eyes as he cried out, "Daddy!"

In an instant, John was around the other side of the bed, taking his hand and rubbing it, "Be a brave boy for Daddy, Will. Please?"

Will bit on his trembling lower lip as John squeezed his hand. He began sobbing loudly when the nurse cleaned his wound with antiseptic.

"Be gentle, would you?" Sherlock snapped at her.

The nurse did not bother shooting her a withering look as she continued cleaning the wound. Everyone knew what Ms. Holmes was like.

"It stings!" Will protested to everyone.

"It will, a bit," John reassured him, "but it'll get you better, won't it?"

"Be'er?" Will questioned.

"Better," John promised.

"He needs stitches," the nurse declared. Sherlock had expected it, as had John, yet he looked shocked. Will looked positively horrified and frightened.

"You said i' will ge' be'er," he said in a weak voice to John, "you lied."

John looked at a loss of words, for which Sherlock made up as said, "William, your father meant that the stinging will get better. He didn't say anything about stitches. Do pay attention."

Both the nurse and John looked at her like they wanted her right out of this. Sherlock tried to look nonchalant about it, "Well then, spit-spot. He needs stitches."

"But I don' _wan'_ stichhes," Will complained, as if there was no wound in his knee that had almost split it open. The nurse went on, saying something about 'covering up till doctor sees' and 'infection' and 'septic', and started dressing Will's wound.

"Well you need them," Sherlock said dismissively, "so you can't argue."

Upon seeing that Ms. Holmes was being unreasonable, he turned to his father so that he could persuade him, "Daddy, I don' wan' stichhes. Seb had 'em las' month, and he said it hur' a lo', bu' he took it like a brave boy."

John looked pained, "Sorry, but Ms. Holmes is right. You won't be able to play until you don't get stitches."

That seemed to waver Will's resolution of no stitches a bit.

"And anyway, Seb was lying to you," Sherlock pointed out, "stitches don't hurt. Anaesthetics are used. He was just pretending to be a brave boy in front of the girls."

Will peered at Sherlock tearfully. The only thing he understood was that Seb had lied to him. He looked at his father, just to be sure whether Seb had really lied or not.

"Stand up now," the nurse ordered, and John helped Will up, holding his bony arms strongly.

"Can you stand up, love?"

Will nodded weakly, never the one to let his father down. Sherlock felt a weird jealousy at the scene, something that was completely unwarranted—or at least supposed to be so.

"There's a clinic around the corner," Sherlock spoke, "we can take him there and get the stitches."

John looked at Sherlock weirdly, narrowed his eyes—and then—

"Thank you, Ms. Holmes," John said with a hint of coldness in those fiery blue eyes, "but I think I can take care of my own boy."

Sherlock's face fell ever so slightly, as Will glanced at her, imploring in his gaze. He wanted Ms. Holmes, Sherlock concluded. She wanted to go but—

"I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Watson," Sherlock said equally coldly, while Will looked confused and disheartened that his daddy hadn't liked his teacher.

Without even a nod or an acknowledging glance, John led Will around the corridors towards the exit towards Sherlock's classroom. He retrieved Will's school bag, swung it over his shoulder, and then picked up Will—Sherlock could hear protests of "I'm a big boy now"—and stared wistfully at the father-son couple.

"Odd guy," examined the nurse, "didn't even say thank you."

Sherlock felt the corner of her lips curling, and then with a last look she retreated to her classroom to pack for the day.

When she reached her desk, she noticed that John had taken away Will's assignments.

* * *

John was in for more—because Will had discovered that he was not only going to get stitches, but also an injection for tetanus.

"How many te'anus injections will I need, daddy?" Will asked beseechingly, "I had three las' year."

"Two," John corrected, patting his hair, "You love getting injections. The doctor always gives you a candy for it."

Will curled into a ball of misery, "I don' think this doctor will."

They were waiting for the doctor, who was checking another patient inside. Several people looked at Will and gave him looks of pity.

"Why not?"

"Did you see how _huge _he was?" Will exclaimed, "he's the sor' who eats away all the candy instea' of saving for boys."

John smiled, "Don't worry. I'll ask for one from another doctor."

"Everybo'y's looking a' me," he noticed, changing the subject as if he had never been talking about it. John found hard to keep up with Will sometimes. He was so like his mother, he thought with a stutter of his heart, "why?"

"I don't know, love—okay, here we go, our number's here. You'll be a brave boy, won't you?"

Will nodded solemnly and tugged at John's hand, wincing quietly at the pain in his leg. John wanted to scoop him up, but it was only a few steps and that would be all. But as they reached the door of the "huge" doctor, the doctor surprised them by rushing out with a rude apology, almost shoving Will to John's side. John held on to Will protectively as he shot the man's back a death glare. As much as he wanted to confront the doctor for being so rude, Will was hurting and he looked up at John with newer tears forming in his eyes. He made Will sit down in a nearby chair while he went to ask at the reception what the hell had happened.

"Oh," said the receptionist, "I'm terribly sorry. Dr. Alvarez just left, after an emergency call."

"Well, my son needs stitches, he's in a lot of pain," John said, pointing to Will who stared at his father avidly, "and I'd be grateful if you could schedule someone."

"Well," the receptionist checked on her computer, "We've erm. . . well, there's a doctor in room number three. She'll be free in another five minutes. Maybe I could schedule you. . .?"

"That'd be great, thanks," John said tiredly. The receptionist gave him a charming smile and went on with her work.

"Daddy?" Will looked at him sadly, his blue eyes wide and his lips pouting, "You're a doctor. Why can' you trea' me?"

John thought of a simpler explanation. "I don' have stitching things, you see."

Will seemed to consider that and shrugged.

After sometime (and lots of Will-mopes and sulks), their number thankfully arrived and John ushered Will as fast as they could.

The doctor was a slim, blonde woman who had their backs turned to them. She was checking something on the charts while she spoke in a faux-cheerful voice, "Hi, I'm Dr. Sarah Sawyer, make yourself comfortable on the chairs there. I'll attend to you shortly."

John blinked, and then cleared his throat smartly, "Erm, doctor, my son—"

"Erm, just one second hold—?" Dr. Sawyer spun around almost immediately, but then she met John's eyes and hastily coughed her words down, "well, just one sec, Mr. . .?"

"Dr. Watson," John looked at her steadily, extending one hand. Sarah took a look at it and took her gloves off to shake his hand. When Will saw that he was being ignored, he let out a small cry of pain.

"On, and this must be the young man, erm . . . William, right?"

"I'm a boy," Will corrected her petulantly. Sarah laughed and clapped her hands.

"Well then, Will—can I call you Will?"

Will looked at his dad who gave him a nod, "Okay."

"Well then, Will, let's get you on the bed, yeah? You don't need to be scared at all. You're a very brave boy, most of them throw a screaming fit even entering for this. The next part's easy. You lie and you chat with your dad."

Will and John shared apprehensive looks. They had never really "chatted". it was Will who took the first initiative, "Can I watch Cou'age the Cordly dog?"

At this, Sarah shook her head, "Ah, no. There's no TVs here, is there?"

Will seemed reluctant to go on with it, but the pain in his leg was intense. John thought he was a brave boy, battling it like that. If it were him, he'd have been tearing up, at the least.

"Well," John began apprehensively. He had been away from home most of the time and didn't know Will as well as a father should, "you could tell me about your school."

Will looked distressed, but then he began, "Today, Seb brought his PSP to school. . ."

* * *

"She was so nice!" Will chanted excitedly, as they sat at the back of the bus, "She gave me three candies. Three, daddy, three!"

They had exited out of the clinic with a Will who was advised not to take part in any strenuous activity for a week—which had earned John a pout—with Will's medication in a brown paper package and Sarah's number in the front pocket of his shirt. Will yawned and tried to move his legs, as if trying to experiment exactly how much force would make his stitches burst open bleeding again.

"Will, no," John warned, "Dr. Sawyer warned you not to, didn't she?"

"She said tha' I could call her Sa'ah," Will said, "Imma call her Sarah."

Somehow, Dr. Sawyer had made her way into Will's heart within an hour. There was nothing else he could talk about. He talked about how pretty she was, how nice she was, and moreover she gave him three candies, which was a big thing for Will.

"Okay," John gave in, "_Sarah_ asked you not to move your leg, yeah?"

"Okay," he shrugged, but when John began to look elsewhere, Will began to swing his legs again with another enormous yawn. John heard it, thinking about what Sherlock had said—he didn't want to think about Sherlock anymore. She had done to him the worst possible thing a person could ever do. Did she never really have a sense of shame about what she did—continuously proclaiming herself as Will's teacher when she clearly understood (if John had to go by the way she stuttered to a stop when she heard his name) that she was Will's mot—

John closed his eyes. He had only begun to interact with Will on a daily basis, giving up his life in the army upon hearing that Clara and Harry were on the verge of separation and that Harry being the closest biological family member, Will would have to live with her. He didn't want to—couldn't—share his life with Will with anyone else, much less the birth mother who had abandoned them and made John battle through his undergraduate life with the burden of an infant.

"I'm tired," Will sagged against John, and soon before John could process it, he was already asleep. It reminded him of the way Sherlock slept, when she had rested her chin against John's shoulder after the—

John shook his head, watching the sleeping marvel that was Will. He might have fought with him through university, working three jobs, paying the rent for the halls and studying on scholarship, but all that mattered was that Will was here, safe, healthy, energetic, smiling.

Happy?

John rested Will's head against his shoulder. Tonight, he'd not let him sleep alone. Tonight, even if he had nightmares of men with their limbs severed off, gaping throats and other impossible injuries, he wouldn't wake up, because he'd know that Will was there, asleep.

He'd put an end to it. How dare Sherlock question his fathering abilities when she was absent for nearly Will's whole life? If necessary, he'd also withdraw Will from St. Paul's Academy.

John knew he was overreacting. But one thing he was going to ensure. Will was not going to spend any more sleepless nights.

* * *

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